Pep Guardiola has named a number nine-less starting line-up for Saturday's Premier League clash away at Chelsea, in an attempt to recreate Manchester City's dominant 3-1 win in January.
That day at Stamford Bridge Kevin De Bruyne played in the false-nine role, as Chelsea struggled to live with the Belgian dropping deep and creating chance after chance.
City have, of course, lost their last three meetings with Chelsea - every one since Thomas Tuchel succeeded Frank Lampard in January.
In those three defeats, the Champions League final in particular, City struggled to create chances against Chelsea's finely tuned defence and were too often caught in transitions themselves.
In omitting a classic striker figure from his starting XI, Guardiola is aiming to control the game through ball retention and packing the midfield.
The absence of Ilkay Gundogan, perhaps City's best midfielder in terms of keeping possession and controlling games, through injury has rather forced Guardiola's hand. The question is though - who will occupy the false nine role?
Kevin De Bruyne seems the obvious choice. He played there a number of times during the second half of last season. His extraordinary passing ability and vision means that he is the player most suited to dropping deep from the defensive line and creating opportunities.
Gabriel Jesus could also perform the role, flanked by Phil Foden and Jack Grealish with De Bruyne dropping into the number eight position. Guardiola has prefered to use Jesus as a right-sided winger this term, although the qualities he has praised in Jesus - the abillity to get more involved in build-up play than an out-and-out striker - makes him a suitable false nine.
Foden could certainly do the job, although he hasn't had too much experience playing in the centre of attack. Interestingly though, Guardiola has deployed him in that role in some very big games - successfully at home against Real Madrid and less so away at Liverpool, with a switch to the right-wing for the second half of last season's Anfield encounter proving devastatingly effective.
And of course there is Bernardo Silva, City's jack of all trades. It's been a while since the Portuguese midfielder played there, and given Gundogan's absense, you'd expect that Guardiola's will want his terrier-like ball-winner to be doing just that and helping to control the middle of the pitch.
Whoever Pep goes with, we can conclude this much: Guardiola knows how dominant Chelsea's defence will be and, without an elite striker, playing a fixed number nine would likely prove futile.
Better to draw them out and try and suffocate them out of the game by keeping the ball. Guardiola has started all of his best available ball-retainers, now they have to get the job done.
